Eric felt deep inside of him the terror and danger building. 

This thing had come for him.

The dust cleared, showing a grotesque beast standing around eight feet tall. It had two sets of stubby horns protruding straight up from the top of its head almost like the peaks of a crown, then two larger horns that seemed to extend from the back of its neck and extend up to point towards what it was looking at, almost like an incomplete halo above the head of an angel. 

Its face was contorted into a wicked smile, revealing sharpened teeth but with some more human-like teeth spread out in seemingly random order. The eyes were cat-like, tall pupils pulled tight as if warding against a bright light. 

The rear of the caravan noticed the creature and hastened forward, alerting others in front of them in a wave until the entire caravan began moving swifter. Bearald hadn’t seemed to notice or care at the front. 

“You!” The beast roared in a guttural, yet surprisingly coherent voice. He raised a hand toward Eric, almost a longing hand. “I can see you for eternity!” 

Sophia stepped in front of Eric, a low growl sounding in her throat. 

Clanker came and stood to Eric’s left, laying a hand on his shoulder. 

The beast held out his arms and looked up at the sky, then gestured to the area around him. 

“You are a beacon!” The beast said, a hint of pain at the last word. “I had to come and see, come and taste of you.” The beast’s smile deepened, eyes shadowed by the menacing turn of the brow. 

“Wh–” Eric tried to say, but couldn’t form words while his eyes were locked with the beast’s.”

“A gargoyle,” Sophia said. “Personal guards to the Dracula in his Red City. But why–”

“I flew for days!” The beast roared. “My liege felt a stirring, unlike anything he’d felt before. They bade me not go, but how could I resist this?” He gestured to Eric. “Your light is blinding!” The gargoyle suddenly shot forward, instantly crossing the distance to Eric and clamping a hand around Eric’s throat. The quick motion threw Clanker to the side, but Sophia stood her ground. 

She turned and quickly scored a few dagger slashes on the gargoyle’s back, but the blade just bounced off of incredibly tough skin, almost like it was stone. 

The gargoyle ignored Sophia, intently staring at the struggling Eric. The area around the gargoyle’s eyes seemed to be bleeding, its pupils nearly closed. 

“Such light,” the gargoyle said. “A light that could raize Auron to dust…” It seemed to be contemplating something as it stared at Eric. 

Eric grew closer to unconsciousness as the gargoyle held onto him, nearly crushing his throat. His mind rushed to think of answers. 

Rose? What do I do…? His thoughts could barely put words together as the darkness seeped into his vision.

“The ring, Eric!” Rose said.

While the gargoyle was seemingly distracted in thought, Eric inched his hand into a pocket in his tunic, finding the ring box, then opened the velvet case. 

He didn’t hesitate to pry the ring from its soft slit in the velvet and begin to move it onto his finger. 

The hulky soldier with them had moved up to try scoring hits on the gargoyle, which had taken notice of him, perceiving the threat of a larger foe. It easily caught the downswing of the soldier’s huge axe, but did all that while not breaking eye contact with Eric. 

“I think it wise that I kill you now,” the gargoyle said. “My liege would be much appreciated.” The previous ecstasy it had earlier melded to pain, seeming to struggle more and more to even look at Eric. Yet, there was no light emanating from him at the moment. 

Eric was struggling to get the ring around a finger in his pocket, made more difficult by his fading consciousness and having to do that with only one hand. 

The soldier tried to rip the axe free of the gargoyle’s grasp, but the beast had a strong hold on the blade of the weapon. 

A sudden red light surrounded the three of them, gargoyle, Eric, and soldier. 

Sophia had run over to Clanker and exposed her forearm. The skeleton was standing over her, hand held out dripping with her blood. 

The gargoyle’s face turned sour, twisting its head to look over to them, glaring death into Sophia’s eyes. In a second, the red light seemed to shoot into the gargoyle’s body, then fading into nothingness.

Clanker gasped. “Absorption? That’s new.” He seemed to take on a look of respect and interest as he looked at the gargoyle. 

Eric then forced this thumb down on the edge of the ring, sliding it firmly over his left pointer finger. 

The gargoyle’s head snapped back to Eric, a smile spreading on its face. 

“So,” it said, the previous ecstasy returning. “You have more than just light in you.” The gargoyle’s eyes seemed to relax, its pupils opening up more. 

Then, all faded to black for Eric. It was unclear to him at the moment whether he had failed to get the ring on in time and succumbed to unconsciousness, or he had succeeded in activating his other powers.

It turned out to be a little of both.

Eric’s skin seemed to suck in light, turning a dark grey, while light gathered at the edges of his silhouette, almost like an eclipse. 

At that moment, Eric seemed to just slip through the gargoyle’s grip, passing through his hand like it was nothing. He landed on the ground, standing straight, eyes seeming to be empty. He slowly turned to look up at the gargoyle, who had backed away slightly. It looked at his hand in confusion, then at Eric.

“You are something dangerous,” it said. “My liege will not be pleased to hear of your arrival, Hero of Splinters. I take my leave.” All previous excitement had left the gargoyle upon seeing Eric’s other power. He turned to depart, wings extending out and lifting in preparation to leap into the air. 

Sophia gasped, then quietly said, as if by rote memory, “Broken, he will take that which was splintered and mold it together with his light, passing through his enemies, returning might to the land, peace to the people, and death to the tyrants of blood.” 

 Just before the gargoyle took flight, Eric suddenly appeared in front of the beast in a warping of light. The gargoyle looked down in surprise as Eric leaped upwards, yanking the beast upward with him by the neck. 

They shot upward into the sky in a burst, sending out dust and cracks across the stone. They hurtled higher and higher, seeming to pick up speed. The gargoyle thrashed, trying to scratch at Eric’s hand, but its claws and fingers seemed to pass right through Eric to claw and tear at the gargoyle’s own flesh underneath Eric’s hand. 

The gargoyle tried to speak, but Eric’s grip on its throat was too great for it to get out words or air for that matter. 

The clouds rushed passed them, slowly opening up to reveal a beautiful sight of stars and light curving around the planet and illuminating a wide landscape of green and stone, a high thunderstorm raging farther east. 

The two finally slowed, finding a moment of weightlessness at the peak of Eric’s jump upward. Then gravity began to pull them down again, but as they started the tumble, Eric shifted the gargoyle downward so he was underneath him. The gargoyle realized what Eric was doing and began to shift and thrash even more. The beast spread its wings to try and turn them in the air, but Eric was somehow able to reorient them each time, stopping the gargoyle from shifting positions as they fell. 

The beast roared as best it could, a fear melding with anger in its eyes. 

A soft voice spoke into existence, as if far away, yet soft and gentle. 

“Eric,” Rose said. 

He didn’t respond, still staring dead-eyed forward at the gargoyle as they fell. The ground was rapidly getting closer, only seconds from impact. 

“Eric,” Rose said again. “What kind of person do you want to be?”

In a quick motion, Eric released the gargoyle and pulled the ring off his finger, odd light surrounding him fading. He returned to consciousness, realizing they were falling. As soon as Eric let go of the gargoyle, it took in a deep, haggard breath, then spread its wings and bolted away as fast as a bullet, disappearing from Eric’s vision.

As it began to vanish, Eric could hear it yelling, roaring over the sound of rushing air. 

“I will spar with thee again, Hero of Splinters!” 

Eric flailed, looking down at the approaching ground, panic rising in his gut as he fell. 

“Rose!” He yelled. “What do I do?!”

“You’ll be fine,” She said, almost sounding exasperated, yet relieved somehow. 

A red ball of light shot from below just before Eric hit the ground and caught him in a net of sorts. It was like the emergency nets that acrobats used underneath their acts in case they fell. 

Eric came to a stop a few inches above the ground, at which point the red net of light vanished and he dropped to the ground in a plop. 

He breathed hard as he slowly turned onto his back, looking up at the sky.

What just happened? Eric thought. I can remember most of what happened. Why?

“The transfer of the power combined with your unconsciousness was likely to blame,” Rose said. “Both you and your other self were unable to act as if both unconscious and conscious at the same time. Perhaps that is what allowed you to take action and remove the ring, also allowing you to remember what happened. It is a good sign that you will be able to harness this power one day.”

Eric just lay there for a moment, looking at the sky and rubbing his neck. It had a slight red mark from the gargoyle, but much less damaged than he had expected considering the strength of that monster. 

Clanker walked over and looked down at him. 

“Humans are such weird things,” Clanker said. 

Eric smiled. “Aren’t you technically human?” 

“Didn’t say I was excluding myself,” he said, smiling with that impossible skeletal smile. 

Sophia ran over, blood dripping slowly from a slash across her forearm. She looked down at him in awe.

“Are you really him?” She asked. “The Hero of Splinters?”

Eric looked at her in confusion, then noticed that the entire caravan had stopped, many of the caravaneers staring at Eric as well. 

A few of them had even bowed. 

Eric would soon learn what it meant to be a part of prophecy, a standard of hope for a people. Perhaps, even a savior. 

What did I stumble into?